


Changes

by Kayim, siluria



Series: Changes (Mag7 AU) [1]
Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayim/pseuds/Kayim, https://archiveofourown.org/users/siluria/pseuds/siluria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Change is the essence of life.  Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become."</i><br/>-- Author Unknown</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changes

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of years ago, with a lot of help from Siluria/Ranger, I wrote "Metamorphosis", the first part of our new Changes AU. We both loved the story, and still do, but have recently realised that our writing wasn't as good as we believed it was. Rather than continue with the AU as it was, both of us decided that we needed to re-boot the universe.
> 
> This story is a standalone story in its own right, but it will also serve as the first story in the new Changes AU.

When Joe Rawlings sped into town, dust churning behind the wheels of the wagon, it was obvious that something was wrong. The farmer was covered in dirt and blood poured freely from a wound on his forehead.

"Where are they?" he yelled as loud as he could at anyone who would listen. His voice was hoarse, as though he had been screaming for days. "The Seven. Where are they?"

Hearing the commotion, people spilled onto the street. Chris pushed apart the swing doors of the saloon and joined the group forming around the now stationary wagon.

Almost reverently, people moved aside to let him through. The respect that he received from the townsfolk was something he would never be comfortable with.

"Joe?" Chris reached out a hand but it was clear that Joe could barely see him. He had been beaten, badly by the looks of it. The wound on his forehead was still bleeding and as Joe reached up to wipe the blood away, Chris could see that bruises covered most of his face.

"Joe," he repeated, moving in closer to the man. He put his hand on Joe's arm to reassure him. "It's me, Chris Larabee," he said.

With a cough that threatened to knock him off his horse, Joe looked up.

"Chris?" he asked, his eyes struggling to focus. "Thank god."

And then he passed out.

*

By the time Chris had carried Joe to the clinic, the others were already there. Chris laid him gently in the small bed and stepped back to let Nathan look at him.

"Is he going to be okay?" he asked the healer. Joe and his wife, Melissa, had a small farm out towards Eagle Bend, near to where Chris's ranch had once been. Although not friends, they saw each other often enough and Melissa had been friends with Sarah.

Nathan shook his head. "He's still unconscious," he replied. "He's been beaten up pretty bad."

"Where's Missus Rawlings?" JD asked. He looked at the others, wondering why none of them had already asked the question.

Their silence gave him time to realise that if Joe's wife had been hurt, he would never have left her alone to come into town looking for them. And had she been okay, she would never have allowed Joe to come here alone, as injured as he was.

"We should head up to the farm," Buck said, already walking towards the door.

Chris looked around at the men gathered there.

"Whoever did this is long gone," he said. "We need to figure out where they went."

Josiah spoke up. "I can get to the farm there quicker than the rest of you," he reminded them. When the Seven had been trapped in a rockslide six months earlier, something unexpected had happened to them. Each had survived the experience, physically unharmed, but changed. They could now do things that no other person could.

"I'll look for something to give us an idea of who did this."

"Take me with you," Buck asked. Josiah was able to jump from one place to another, instantaneously, and he had recently discovered that he could "carry" someone else with him when he went. It was exhausting to make the jump, but it allowed him to get over to the farm in much less time than the others could ride there.

Chris nodded. "Buck, let Vin know the moment you find out anything there." Vin's ability to hear the other men, no matter how far away they were from him was something that had been extremely useful in several situations so far.

As Buck and Josiah were walking towards the door - Josiah found it easier to jump when he was outdoors - Buck stopped suddenly and sniffed the air.

"Perfume," he said cryptically. The smell tingled in his nose and he had to concentrate to prevent it from becoming overpowering to him.

"Melissa didn't wear fancy perfumes," Chris said. But he didn't correct Buck. If perfume was what he smelled, then perfume it was. "You sure it's from Joe?"

Buck smiled. "It's around him," he answered, "but it's not coming from him." He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deeply. "I think it's come from whoever did this to him," he said, indicating Joe's bruised and bloody face.

"A woman did this?" Vin was horrified by the thought, until he caught a glimpse of the thought coming from Buck.

"Nah," Buck reassured them. "It's not that strong. But a woman was close to the son of a gun. And she likes expensive smellin' perfumes."

Ezra had been quiet during these conversations. With the heated emotions emanating from his colleagues, he was struggling to keep the temperature cooled in the clinic.

When their abilities had emerged, he had been utterly indignant at his new "power". Being able to move water around seemed like the most pointless enhancement he could possibly have received. In a fight, while Chris could melt the barrel of a gun with barely a glance, and young JD could make himself invisible and attack from a perfect vantage point, he was able to do no more than make a glass of water fall from a table.

It was Josiah, unsurprisingly, who had made him realise the error of his ways.

"Do you know how much water there is around us all the time?" Josiah had asked, as the two of them played a quick hand of poker. All the time they played, he spoke about the ambient water in the atmosphere and the amount of water contained within the human body. That was one of the few poker games that Ezra had lost.

It had taken a lot of practice, but eventually he began to find more practical uses for his ability. By pulling more atmospheric water towards him, he could make a stifling room more bearable. The water in the air was now cool enough that temperatures which had started to rise were subdued.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed with a cloth, gently cleansing some of the bloody patches on Joe's face. Looking after the sick and injured had never been something that appealed to Ezra, but constant feel of water from the bowl on the bedside table allowed him a greater control over the water in the air.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," he interrupted Buck's discussion of women's perfumery. "But I believe our visitor is beginning to awaken."

Nathan and Chris both rushed to the bed.

"What happened?" Joe's voice was weak and trembling. He looked around the room and saw Chris's familiar face. "Melissa," he said, his eyes filling with tears. "Those bastards have my wife."

*

While Buck didn't have any specific insecurities regarding Josiah's jumping, he was still nervous. Not scared, he told himself, just suffering from a mild case of healthy nervousness. This would be the first time he had jumped with Josiah - JD, Chris and Nathan had each gone with him before - and he was concerned how his senses would cope. The control he now had over his enhanced senses was good, but sometimes, an unexpected noise or smell could shake him enough that everything would hit him all at once. The others had reassured him that they hadn't noticed anything during the jump, but he had heard Josiah's descriptions of the hell he visited on more than one occasion.

"Are you ready, Buck?" Josiah asked.

Buck nodded as Josiah stepped towards him. "I know the others say this is safe," he said, "but I think I'll just close my eyes until we're done."

Josiah couldn't blame him, and assured him so. He stood behind Buck and wrapped his arms tightly around his friend's body. He wasn't sure he needed to hold on quite so tightly, but the last thing he wanted to do was let go in mid-jump.

He took a deep breath and muttered "Deliver me from evil" and then he too closed his eyes.

As always, the pain involved in one of his jumps was near unbearable. The first time he jumped, he described the feeling to Nathan as his whole body turning itself inside out. The jump seemed to last forever, although the others would assure him that it was, as always, instantaneous. He was aware of every movement he made, despite the lack of anything that surrounded them.

As soon as he made the jump, everything around him became black. He couldn't see, smell or hear anything. The only two things he was aware of were the excruciating pain and the feel of Buck in his arms. His breath was sucked from his lungs and he was sure that, this time, he would suffocate. He wondered briefly if Buck was in as much pain as he was.

Moments later, the pain eased, as it always did, and he felt the warmth of the sun on his skin again. Each time he jumped, he seemed to be stuck in the nothingness for a different length of time. This time had been fairly short - barely 30 seconds by his count. Four and a half minutes had been the worst one. It had taken him three days before he could stand again.

He eased his eyes open, wincing slightly from the glare from the sun. He saw Joe's bright red barn - he and JD had helped him paint it more than a year ago - and knew he had made it through the jump. He forced his muscles to relax their grip on Buck and stepped away from the other man.

"We here?" Buck asked, similarly opening his eyes and looking around.

Josiah could only offer a small grunt as he fell to the ground. Buck rushed over, crouching down next to him.

"Damnit Josiah," he said. "Why do you keep doing that if you know what it's gonna do to you?"

"Go," Josiah managed to reply, the effort of speaking leaving him barely able to keep his eyes open. "Find clues."

Buck sighed. He hated to leave Josiah like this, but he had his own job to do. He briefly touched his hand to Josiah's face and then stood up.

He loved that he could do things no-one else could. As difficult as it was for him sometimes to cope with the barrage of smells and sounds that surrounded him, he loved to watch the look of astonishment from someone when he told them what they were drinking just from the smell. Or when he greeted someone walking into the saloon by name, having identified them simply by the sound of their footsteps.

Of course, there were other advantages, such as being able to tell when a certain young lady he was avoiding was coming close. And more than once he had saved Chris's life by listening out for a gun being cocked.

_Vin?_ he called out silently inside his head. He didn't think he would ever get used to the idea that his every thought could be heard, but it was certainly useful.

_I can hear you. You at the farm?_

_Yep. Not much to see so far. Gonna take a closer look. How's Joe?_

_I dunno._ Buck could hear the worry in Vin's voice. _Nathan says he'll be okay, but he looks awful busted up._

_We'll get them,_ he assured his friend. _Just as soon as I figure out who we're looking for._

_Chris says to keep in touch._

Buck saw an image in his mind of Vin and the way he always tapped at the brim of his hat in acknowledgement. He was pretty sure that Vin had done just that as he ended their "conversation".

Looking around, Buck scanned the ground for prints. He knew the Rawlings kept horses, but it was easy enough for him to tell which direction the horses were travelling in and whether they had riders or not.

Sure enough, near the main house, Buck saw two fresh sets of prints. Both were deep enough to indicate that they had riders and they were both spaced out enough that he could tell the horses had been going pretty fast on their way out of the farm. He looked closer.

There's two of them, he told Vin, who immediately passed the information on to Chris and the others who were still holed up in the clinic.

I think one of them took Melissa, he added. One of the sets of prints was even deeper than the other, which usually interpreted as there being two riders on one horse. But he doubted that they would do something like that unless necessary. When you're attacking an innocent farmer and his wife, you want to be as quick as possible.

She still alive? Vin asked, hesitantly.

No way of knowing. If she aint…. He let the thought trail off. It wasn't something he particularly wanted to think about.

He turned back towards Josiah and suddenly he caught a whiff of the same perfume he'd noticed on Joe. It was much stronger here. He was more sure than ever that the fragrance must have come from the cowards who attacked Joe.

Closing his eyes, Buck concentrated on the smell. In his mind, he could see the aroma almost like a cloud of colored dust. It was strongest outside the main house and near the barn, but it permeated most of the farm. Breathing deeper, Buck pushed his ability to the limit, trying harder to trace the scent than he had ever done before.

"Got it!" he yelled out, triumphantly. There was a clear line of scent that he could follow, heading North out of the farm.

Quickly, he relayed this information back to Vin.

There's only two places in that direction, Vin replied, passing on the message from Chris. The Lamsons and the McGowans.

Can't see old Mr Lamson doin' something like this, Buck said. Not with him havin' only one eye and all. Gotta be them damn McGowan boys.

We're on our way, came the reply.

*

A short distance from the McGowan ranch, Chris pulled his horse to a halt, with the other four men following suit.

"JD. I need you to go on ahead and let us know what the situation is."

JD, thrilled as always to be singled out, nodded briefly. It was a relief for him to be able to relax his will. He let go and felt the world shimmer around him. A slight change in the colours around him let him know that it had worked. He was completely invisible again.

From the start, JD's ability had worked differently to the others. While each of them had to concentrate to make their abilities work, he had to concentrate in order to turn his off. In his natural state, he couldn't be seen by anyone - it was only when he was thinking about himself that he became visible.

He was getting better at it though, as he tried to prove regularly to Chris and the others. He would try and stay visible while he made the others distract him. The sound of gunshots didn't affect him, neither did the sordid stories that Buck and Ezra regaled him with. To his eternal embarrassment, however, the moment Nathan mentioned Casey's name, he vanished. Which was probably a good thing, as the blush that had spread across his face would have humiliated him otherwise.

A hiss of shock from Vin, who was still a little uncomfortable with the idea of JD sneaking around invisibly, told him that his disappearance had been successful.

"I'll let Vin know what's going on over there," he said, the disembodied voice sounding strange to them all.

He had to go on foot to the ranch - if he'd taken his horse, people might have wondered why a horse was wandering around riderless. He could make small things invisible when he changed, things like his guns and his clothes, but anything larger stayed visible. He had caused a bit of a commotion in the saloon a while back in a situation involving a bottle of whiskey.

He ran most of the way there, only slowing when he got within sight of the ranch. He had to always bear in mind that although he couldn't be seen, his footprints and the dust he churned up could still be.

The McGowan ranch was built around the main house - a very elaborate affair in classic white. Old Mr McGowan, before his death two years earlier, had been a very wealthy man. He was one of the lucky few who made enough money from his small homestead to enable him to expand. By the time he died, he was well known in the area. As were his two sons.

James and Christian were the eldest of the McGowan children. Unlike their other siblings, these two took after their mother rather than their father. While Mr McGowan had believed in working hard and saving hard, his wife much preferred to play hard and spend hard. It was a miracle that he had built the ranch up as successfully as he had.

After he died, the boys took their share of the ranch and sold it to their younger brothers in order to get some quick cash. It didn't stop them from living at the ranch, of course, relying on their mother to keep them fed and watered. It didn't take long before the ranch started losing money. Less than two months ago, the younger boys had given up and sold off what remained of their father's legacy. The land was sold back to the bank and the remaining livestock sold to the highest bidder. Even that was barely enough to cover what James, Christian and their mother had cost them.

As JD got closer, he could see the smoke from the chimney billowing over the main house. Someone was obviously still living there, and he had a pretty good idea who it was. Sure enough, when he looked through the window, he could see Melissa Rawlings. She was still alive, but she had been tied to a chair.

Melissa's here, he told Vin, knowing that the message would be passed on to the rest of the group. She's a bit bruised, but she's okay, I think.

Any sign of the miscreants? The voice he heard in his had was Vin's, but the question was obviously Ezra's.

Not yet, but I reckon they're both in the house. I can't see…

Before he could finish the thought, the front door opened. Instinctively, despite knowing that he couldn't be seen, JD ducked down out of sight. The brothers staggered as they walked off the front porch and towards the corral. Whatever they had been drinking had left them both a little worse for wear.

JD? Vin's voice carried an air of concern.

M'okay, he reassured the others. They've just come out of the house. They look like they're runnin' away. You might wanna ride in here.

That was more than enough encouragement for the others. The horses were spurred on as Vin informed JD that they were on their way.

They were less than a minute away at full gallop. Despite the alcohol, the brothers were quick to notice the riders coming in. Leaping onto the nearest two horses, the two split up - heading in opposite directions out of the ranch.

"Ezra, with me," Chris ordered, chasing after one of the boys. "Nathan, check on Melissa."

Vin was slightly further behind, having brought JD's horse along with him. He watched as JD shimmered into view and took a running jump onto his horse. "That one's ours," Vin said to JD, heading after the younger brother.

He's not much older than I am, JD thought to himself, forgetting that his thoughts were being "listened" to.

"But you're a good person," Vin answered out loud. He had spent a lot of time with JD when their abilities had first shown themselves and had developed a strong friendship with him. At first Vin had been unable to shut out the voices that surrounded him. He distanced himself from the others, spending his time either in the church or out riding by himself. However, he found that, of the others, JD was the one he found it most comfortable to be around.

Whether it was to do with his ability, or because of the natural way his thoughts went, JD's mind was easier to cope with. Rather than the constant barrage of thoughts, there was a noise that Vin described as a "buzz".

"It's like you have a million thoughts in your head, but you're thinkin' about them all instead of just one," he had explained to JD. It had taken a moment for JD to realise that Vin wasn't insulting him, but he was pleased by Vin's reaction.

"I'm also a better rider than him", JD said, referring to Christian McGowan, who was obviously not as comfortable on a horse as his older brother.

With a quick shout of encouragement, JD pushed on a little faster, closing the gap between him and McGowan.

He's about to bolt hard left, Vin called out silently to JD, having caught the stray thought.

It was a simple matter for JD to change direction and pull himself up in front of the other rider. With Vin coming up close behind him, shotgun aimed directly at his chest, McGowan had only one option left.

He tugged on his reins and pulled the horse to a stop.

*

"Damnit," Chris cursed, riding hard. "He's got too much of a head start."

James McGowan kept turning around to look behind him. Chris and Ezra were catching up, but it was taking too long.

Suddenly, Ezra pulled his horse up sharply. "I believe I can slow this degenerate down without having to exert ourselves unnecessarily."

Chris slowed and came to a halt beside him.

With his brow wrinkled in concentration, Ezra stretched one hand out in front of him. He didn't actually need to make a physical action to use his ability, but he sometimes found it easier, especially when he needed to aim it at a specific point. He reached out with his mind and felt for the water that lay in the ground. The arid environment was not an obvious source of water, but Ezra had learnt that there was more water surrounding him than he had ever thought possible.

In this particular instance, he encouraged the water to rise closer to the surface a few yards ahead of McGowan. As intended, the ground became wet and the soil mixed with the water, leaving a muddy patch the size of a small wagon.

The moment the horse hit the muddy patch, it stopped, puzzled by the change in the ground. The sudden lack of movement led to McGowan being thrown. He landed in the mud in what Ezra would refer to as a very undignified manner. It didn't slow him down though, as he attempted scrambled to his feet.

"I cannot believe that this creature is quite this deluded," Ezra said to Chris, watching as McGowan slipped and landed face down in the mud.

Chris looked at Ezra and smiled. "Let me try," he said.

Of the Seven, Chris was frustrated to find he had the least amount of control over his newfound ability. Whenever he became angry, which was happening more often recently, he found the air around him heating up. If it was a specific person that was irritating him, there was a strong chance that they would suddenly find their chair heating up under them, threatening to either explode or leave a rather nasty burn mark. Buck had found himself on the heated side of Chris on more than one occasion in the last few months.

"Do those look like those new riveted jeans to you?" he asked Ezra.

Ezra laughed. "Oh, you wouldn't."

Chris simply raised an eyebrow in response.

He focused on the jeans that McGowan wore. He couldn't see the rivets he was looking for because they were covered in thick mud but he knew where they were. He imagined them warming up. Just a little at first - he always found it harder to start heating something up from cold - and then hotter and hotter.

It was the one on the waistband that Chris suspected would have the greatest effect.

"You ready to give yourself up yet?" he called out, giving the kidnapper one last chance to make it out unscathed.

The response was filled with curses that would have made a woman weep in horror.

"If you insist," Chris shouted back.

He quickly increased the temperature of the metal rivets until they would have been hot enough to brand a horse. McGowan screamed, slapping at his smouldering skin with his hands. When that had no effect, he flung himself face down into the mud, no doubt hoping that the cool mud would succeed in saving his burning assets.

"You ready now?" Chris asked, wondering how much hotter he could make the rivets without them melting.

"YES! YES! OH GOD YES!" screamed McGowan, writhing in the mud.

"Allow me," said Ezra, concentrating once more on the water mixed into the mud. As he directed the water to the burning area, the rest of the mud on McGowan dried up, hardening and cracking.

Disappointed that he hadn't been able to push his ability any further, Chris casually rode over towards McGowan.

From the edge of the muddy patch, Chris leant down from his horse.

"I guess you won't be kidnapping any more women now, will you?"

*

Nathan didn't mind being left out of the fighting. He was a healer, and although he had killed more than once, it wasn't something he enjoyed doing. It was rather ironic, he thought to himself. The one person most suited to a fight was the one person who didn't want to.

He was wary of his super-strength, as JD called it. He could smash a glass just by picking it up. He had already broken the chair in the clinic, having accidentally bumped into it with his arm. Who knew what damage he could do if he lost control in a fight?

Pushing open the door to the main house, he went in quietly, a knife in his hand, ready for anything. Although JD had said that there were just the two men, he had learned the hard way never to take anything on faith.

He crept towards the kitchen, where Melissa was tied up. She sat with her back to the door, so she didn't see him come in. Her hair was messed up and caked with blood, although Nathan couldn't tell at this distance whether she was bleeding or if the blood had come from her husband.

"Melissa?" he called out to her, still watching the front door and stairs.

"Who's there?" she asked, her voice shaking.

One last glance around and he rushed over to her. "My name's Nathan," he explained. "Joe asked me to come and get you."

He tugged at the thick ropes that held her in the chair. In his hands, they fell apart easily, the pieces landing on the floor next to them.

"Joe? Is he okay?"

Nathan started to answer but was interrupted by the creak of a door.

Standing in front of them was Mrs McGowan. Without saying a word to either Nathan or Melissa, she held up a shotgun and aimed it at them.

Instinctively, Nathan pushed Melissa behind him, protecting her as much as he could. He heard the sound of the shotgun being fired and turned around, wrapping his arms tightly around Melissa. His whole body tensed and he prayed simply that his body would slow the buckshot enough that she wouldn't be hurt too badly.

The pain in his side as the shot hit him was less than he had imagined. Having never been shot, he had nothing to compare it to, but it barely stung.

"What the devil are you?" Mrs McGowan hissed at him. He wondered what she meant until he looked down.

Scattered on the floor around him were the shotgun pellets. He released Melissa and lifted his shirt to see what damage had been done. He was shocked to see nothing more than a couple of bruises that had formed on his skin.

As Melissa looked at him in a combination of terror and adoration, Mrs McGowan took the opportunity to run.

"Um, she must have missed me," Nathan tried to explain to Melissa. He couldn't understand himself what had happened. He had felt the buckshot hit him, but it just hadn't hurt him. It seemed that his ability had some kind of side-effect that none of them had anticipated.

*

It had taken Josiah longer than expected to recover from the previous jump and Buck had been itching to join the others. The moment he had the strength for another jump, he had done so, bringing Buck to the ranch to "join in the fun", as he had put it.

The jump had clearly been perfect timing. Landing them directly in front of the house, thanks to a visual image of the ranch he received from Vin, Josiah had managed to jump them into the exact same spot that Mrs McGowan had been expecting to step into.

Unable to stop her rather large frame from its forward momentum, she collided with Josiah who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Buck couldn't tell if it was the shock or the impact that caused her to collapse on the floor, but her scream was loud enough that he honestly thought his ears may start bleeding.

Josiah, again too exhausted to do much more than sit himself on the ground, looked around and saw Chris and Ezra coming in from the south, dragging the older McGowan boy behind them.

From the opposite direction came Vin and JD, the younger McGowan sitting on his horse, quietly following.

Nathan walked out of the house, supporting Melissa.

"Damn," said Buck. "Looks like I missed all the fun again. And damn if that woman's perfume don't smell stronger than terrified skunk."

*

With all three of the McGowans safely locked up, the Seven allowed themselves a small celebratory drink at the saloon.

By the time they had brought Melissa Rawlings back to town, Joe had woken up. In between tears and repeated offers of thanks, Joe explained that the McGowan boys had stormed onto the farm, looking to rustle his horses. When he refused to let them get away with it, backed up by his shotgun, the pair had attacked him. The last words he recalled before passing out was the message that they were taking his woman instead of his horses, "if his horses meant that much to him".

Melissa had reassured them that she hadn't been harmed. "Once we got back to the ranch, they pretty much realised that they had no idea what to do with me," she smiled, sitting next to Joe on the bed. "They just tied me up and left me there."

Inez brought a round of drinks to the table. "On the house," she told them, placing one glass in front of each of them. "Please do not mention this to your mother," she asked Ezra, offering his drink last.

"On the contrary," he replied. "I shall inform her that you overcharged us. That will ensure her continued happiness," he added, offering her a smile as she walked back to the bar.

Buck took a drink from his watered-down beer. As much as he enjoyed ranting about cheap bartenders trying to make the beer last longer, he preferred his beer this way now and luckily Inez was happy to comply without too many questions. "So much for us keeping everything under wraps," he said as soon as she was out of earshot, waving his hand around the table.

You mean this, Vin said, practising his newfound ability to talk to more than one person at a time. So far, he could only manage it when they were within reach of each other, but he kept pushing himself.

"Exactly," Buck replied. "When me an' Josiah popped up outta nowhere, she looked like she'd seen the devil himself."

Josiah winced slightly at the description, but chose not to say anything.

"I don't believe that Mrs McGowan's recollection with cause us any inconvenience," Ezra assured them. He had a drink in one hand and with the other he traced an intricate pattern in the spilled beer on the table. Only someone who looked closely enough would see that he wasn't actually touching the liquid at all.

"I overheard her trying to tell the delightful Missus Travis what happened out at the ranch," he continued, drawing a familiar ace of spades symbol.

"So that's what Mary was laughing at when she walked out of the jail," Buck realised. He had heard her from the other side of the town. It had only been a quiet, lady-like laugh, but it had rung in his ears.

"She doesn't believe any of it?" asked JD, still nervous about getting caught.

"Incoming," Vin interrupted before anyone else could say anything.

Mary walked into the saloon, glancing around her as she swept between the doors. Her eyes locked on the Seven sitting around their regular table and she headed towards them purposefully.

"Gentlemen", she greeted them.

Each of the Seven touched his hat, or nodded in her direction, waiting to hear what she would say about the story she had been told.

"I was speaking to Mrs McGowan earlier," she began. "It's such a pity what happened to her since her husband passed." Her voice hitched slightly on the last word. "But she told me some interesting tales about the last few hours."

None of them spoke.

"Nathan," she addressed the healer. "The poor lady regaled me with some fantastic stories of you being bullet-proof and Josiah here appearing out of nowhere." She gave a small laugh. "I suspect she may have hit her head during the… incident."

Breathing a silent sigh of relief, Nathan nodded. "I'll go over there now and check her over," he said.

"Thank you," Mary replied. "Despite everything, she and I were friends once." Without waiting for an acknowledgement, she turned and left.

"Looks like our deception has not yet been discovered," Ezra said, replacing the spade symbol with a diamond.

"For now," Chris replied, worrying how much longer they could continue keep such a huge secret. He suspected that the time would come soon when they would have to trust someone else in town, such as Mary or Inez. Or even Judge Travis.

And there was not a single part of that future conversation he was looking forward to.


End file.
